Book description
A sequel to the award-winning Buffalo Dance, Frank X Walker's When
Winter Come: The Ascension of York is a dramatic reimagining of Lewis
and Clark's legendary exploration of the American West. By focusing on
the humanity and struggles of York, Clark's slave, When Winter Come
challenges conventional views of the journey's heroes and exposes the
deeds, both great and ghastly, of the men behind the myth. Grounded in
the history of the famous trip, Walker's vibrant account allows York
-- little more than a forgotten footnote in traditional narratives --
to embody the full range of human ability, knowledge, emotion, and
experience. He is a skillful hunter who kills his prey with both grace
and reverence, and he thinks deeply about the proper place of humans
in the natural world. York knows the seasons "like a book,"
and he "can read moss, sunsets, the moon, and a mare's foaling
time with a touch." The Native peoples understand and honor
York's innate bond with the earth. Though his expertise is integral to
the journey's success, York's masters do not reward him; they know
only the way of the lash. The alternately heartbreaking and uplifting
poems in When Winter Come are told from multiple perspectives and
rendered in vivid detail. On the journey, York forges a spiritual
connection and shares sensual delights with a Nez Perce woman, and he
aches when he is forced to leave her and their unborn son. Walker's
poems capture the profound feelings of love and loss on each side of
this ill-fated meeting of souls. When the trek ends and York is sent
back to his former home, his wife and stepmother air their joys and
grievances. As the perspectives of Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea, and others
in the party emerge, Walker also gives voice to York's knife, his
hunting shirt, and the river waters that have borne the labors and
travels of thousands before and after the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Despite fleeting hints that escape is possible, slavery continues to
bind York and quell the joyful noise in his spirit until his death.
Walker's poems, however, give York his voice after centuries of
silence. When Winter Come exalts the historical persona of a slave and
lifts the soul of a man. York ascends out of his chains, out of
oblivion, and into flight.
""Frank X Walker is one of the most important voices in
contemporary Appalachian poetry." --John Lang, Emory and Henry
College" --
Frank X Walker is the author of Black Box, Buffalo Dance: The
Journey of York, and Affrilachia. The recipient of a 2005 Lannan
Literary Fellowship, the Lillian Smith Book Award, and the Thomas D.
Clark Award for Literary Excellence, Walker is Writer-in-Residence at
Northern Kentucky University.
